Those Jensen Boys! Read Online Free PDF Page B

view.
    The echoes of the gunshots had died away, and Ace and Chance were close enough to hear the hoofbeats from the team, along with the rattle and squeal of the coach’s wheels and the squeaking of the broad leather thoroughbraces underneath the coach. As they reached the bridge, the driver successfully negotiated the last turn.
    Once the coach was on level ground it began to slow down. It wasn’t crowding the team, anymore. The driver hauled back on the reins and slowed the vehicle even more.
    â€œLook at the long hair on that shotgun guard,” Chance commented as he and Ace reined their horses to a halt at the edge of the road at the west end of the bridge. “Must be ol’ Wild Bill Hickok come back to life.”
    Neither of them had ever met or even seen the so-called Prince of Pistoleers while he was alive, but Doc Monday claimed to have sat in on a poker game with Wild Bill one time in Cheyenne. Ace and Chance never knew how much credence to give that story. At one time or another, Doc claimed to have met almost every famous person on the frontier.
    While Ace didn’t believe that the shotgun guard on the approaching stage was the reincarnation of Wild Bill Hickok, the man did have long hair tumbling over his shoulders. A broad-brimmed brown hat was crammed down on the curly mass. He wore a buckskin jacket and had the butt of a coach gun resting on the seat so that the barrels pointed upward.
    Ace frowned as he studied the guard. Something about that fella just didn’t look right....
    â€œWait a minute. Are you seeing what I’m seeing? Look at the way that jehu is built.” Chance had noticed the same thing his brother had, although he was looking at the checked flannel shirt the stagecoach driver wore, rather than the guard’s buckskin jacket. But the vehicle was close enough to see that the shapes underneath those garments definitely weren’t masculine.
    That stagecoach was being driven and guarded by a couple women.

C HAPTER F OUR
    Young women, at that, the brothers saw as the coach came to a stop about thirty feet from them.
    The guard with the thick, curly blond hair lowered the coach gun until the barrels were pointed at them. “You two better not be a pair of road agents,” she called to them in a clear, sweet voice.
    â€œI told you, they helped us.” The driver’s voice was musical, too. “They ran off Mr. Eagleton’s men. You saw that with your own eyes, Emily.”
    â€œMaybe so, but that doesn’t mean they ain’t road agents who want to hold us up themselves.”
    â€œWell, I suppose you’re right about that,” the driver admitted.
    Chance started to move his horse forward.
    The young woman called Emily lifted her coach gun even more and trained the weapon on him. “That’s far enough, mister, until you tell us who you are and what you want!”
    Chance made sure both hands remained in plain sight. He didn’t want to risk making her trigger-happy. He put a smile on his face and thumbed back his brown hat, being careful not to move too fast about it. “You’ve misjudged us, ma’am. We saw those fellas chasing you and just wanted to help. That’s why we drove them back over the pass.”
    Emily snorted. “If you really wanted to help, you should’ve ventilated a few of them. I don’t reckon Eagleton would’ve missed a couple gun-wolves. He can always hire more.”
    Ace said, “We’re not in the habit of gunning down anybody when we don’t really know what’s going on. I reckon they must have been bandits?”
    The driver said, “They didn’t want to rob us, exactly, although I don’t doubt they would have looted whatever they could find on the stage after we crashed. What they really wanted was to wreck us.”
    She was more slender than the blonde, with short, dark hair under her hat. She wore baggy denim trousers, high-topped boots,